Uranium found in package at London's Heathrow Airport last month

A small amount of Uranium was found in a package at London's Heathrow Airport last month, British police have said.

But officials have also stressed that the material, which was discovered by routine scanning, poses no direct threat to the public, Reuters notes.

"We were relieved to understand there was no threat to public health or public safety," said Richard Smith of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command. "The consignment that had been identified included a very small amount of contaminated material. We are now conducting further inquiries."

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The takeaway should be that airport screening functioned as intended, Smith added.

Per The Guardian, the uranium was found in a "package of scrap metal" originally from Pakistan and headed for an Iranian business in the U.K. Uranium is often used to manufacture nuclear weapons, as well as "dirty bombs," or "munitions with a radioactive element," the Guardian continues.

"For uranium to turn up on a commercial airliner from Pakistan to an Iranian address in the U.K. is very suspect," Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, ex-commander of the U.K.'s nuclear defense regiment told The Sun, which first reported the news.

That said, police do not believe the discovery is linked to any sort of active plot. No arrests have been made but officials "will continue to follow up on all available lines of inquiry to ensure this is definitely the case," Smith said.